Rugby can be a cruel game and just when you think you are riding the crest of a wave, it has a horrible habit of kicking you right where it hurts most, as Charlie Hodgson found out last Sunday.

Rugby can be a cruel game and just when you think you are riding the crest of a wave, it has a horrible habit of kicking you right where it hurts most, as Charlie Hodgson found out last Sunday.

Coming on eight minutes into the second half as Jonny Wilkinson's replacement, Hodgson had the world at his feet with England manager Clive Woodward having earmarked him to start at No 10 against Scotland on March 22.

And while his rival Wilkinson was always going to be the first-choice fly half, Hodgson was a certainty for England's World Cup squad in Australia next October.

A certainty, that is, until he caught the studs of his left boot in the Twickenham turf less than six minutes after coming on against Italy and had to be helped off with a nasty-looking knee injury.

Sure enough, Hodgson's worst fears were realised when on Tuesday an MRI scan revealed that he had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee - an injury which will keep him out of action for between six and nine months, ruling him out of the World Cup.

It is exactly the same injury, picked up against London Irish at the beginning of November, that has effectively ruled out Falcons' hooker Steve Brotherstone from the Scottish squad, although he hopes to be back for the start of Newcastle's 2003-04 campaign.

Hodgson's injury leaves a massive gap in the England squad and Northampton's veteran No 10 Paul Grayson, who last played for England in the quarter-final of the 1999 World Cup against South Africa, has been called up for the squad to play Scotland.

However, although a recognised quality goalkicker, which puts him ahead of Wasps' Alex King, Grayson is getting a bit long in the tooth - and that might just play into the hands of Kingston Park's seemingly forgotten man, Dave Walder.

I say seemingly forgotten because after breaking the tibia in his right leg in the pre-season game against Edinburgh, Walder hasn't played for Newcastle this season - and what a miss he has been, especially when Wilkinson was first playing for England in the autumn internationals and then on the injured list.

Although Walder usually plays in the No 15 shirt for the Falcons, he is the natural understudy for the No 10 shirt, his preferred position and the one in which he won three full England caps in 2001 and toured Argentina with England as Hodgson's No 2 last summer.

Walder is well on the road to recovery and is targeting a return to action in the middle of April.

More to the point, he has not lost his international ambition and last month he told me: "I haven't given up hope of being involved with England in the World Cup in Australia in October.

"If I can get back playing for Newcastle before the end of the season and force my way into one of the England summer tours, you never know what might happen and I have to look on the bright side."

That was a good month before Hodgson's injury and it seemed a bit optimistic at the time. But a month can be a long time in rugby and the Sale man's cloud could prove to be Walder's silver lining.

It would certainly be popular with the Newcastle fans, who would be delighted if the Gosforth-born player made it a Falcons one-two for the England No 10 World Cup shirt.

I doubt, however, if the Kingston Park management would be quite so keen to lose both their principal playmakers for the first half of next season!